#TheBigShanivaar: Detailed and in-depth review of the first event under Rishta Ek Din Aur campaign.

Sony SAB's Big Shanivaar event under #RishtaEkDinAur: flop or success?

We had abandoned this website and removed all our articles, but today talking about the Big Shanivaar event is really important. This review is an in-depth analysis of the event. Did the channel make a mistake? Did the channel succeed?

Background

The Big Shanivaar, was an event of Sony SAB, on the 9th of October, 2021 from 7:30 to 11:00. All of the shows, HERO: Gayab Mode On, Ziddi Dil Maane Na, Wagle Ki Duniya, Shubh Laabh, Tera Yaar Hoon Main and Maddam Sir were 'claimed' to be clubbed as part of the event. Their other show, Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah was missing from the promotions of this event.

Note: If you are a fan of the shows mentioned below, and if there is a negative review about them, there is no need to feel offended. If you are sensitive towards your shows, you can close the tab. This is an honest and an analytical review about the shows, so we can't be biased.

Note 2: This document is pretty long, but that's because it has a lot of things that translate to 'The Good, the Bad & the Ugly".

Introduction & About the Event

Rakhi Sawant (no, please don't drop your coffee) and Ketan Shah were invited to this event. Their roles were of 'Begum' and 'Badshah' respectively, who are big criminals who fool police of all the states and steal everything. Their format is leaving the cards of Begum and Badshah after each theft. And obviously, who else, but our very own Maddam Sir, i.e. S.H.O. Haseena Mallik was the incharge of this case, and handling it along with her own Mahila Police Thane team AND HERO: Gayab Mode On's Inspector Aditi. She was the only inspector could solve the case and teach them a lesson. Very typical Indian television, isn't it? But don't be disappointed immediately. There was a lot, direct and indirect in this 'Shanivaar'.

Promotions

Sony SAB did not really promote this event properly. There was a video of Rakhi & Ketan talking about coming, but there was not much buzz created beforehands (Twitter trends, YouTube promoted ads, ads on TV, a lot could have been done, right?)

Did Sony SAB make a mistake?

It would be unfair to say the channel made a mistake. There were both drawbacks and features of this event, and this event COULD have been made the base for promotion of a lot of shows, enhancing the storyline, and building base for many elements of shows in further episodes. Only if that happened. Only if that actually happened.

Our Review

Details

The event was not a disaster. The event in itself wasn't atrocious, but yes, it was definitely an insult if you compare the hype that people had created in their own minds and amongst themselves. People were excited for this, because a lot of them wanted shows coming together.

It was a great concept, a great try, and a great idea, but it could have been executed in a much.. much.. much better way.

The screenplay was half baked. It seemed like the channel forgot to keep a team of writers who could decide what exactly was going to happen. The channel probably just decided to have a maha-sangam, and informed all the production houses about it. That's it. It clearly seems like the channel forgot to give further details to the production houses and completely left responsibility of the event to the makers. This resulted in everything being a bit 'off'. Some of the production houses just opted out of the event, causing some episodes to reflect what exactly was going on, and some to not. This again resulted in a very inconsistent storyline, as at one point it was unclear what exactly was going on!

The outcome reflected that there was very little interaction between the different production houses on what to do. In fact, the production house which runs two shows on the same channel could also not decide what to do with their two shows and how to hook them up.

It seemed like the actors were also not interested in doing this. Only a handful of them were seeming actually involved in it. ALTERNATIVELY, this could also be the writers. The writers could probably only want some of the characters to be a part of this event. Rakhi Sawant was excited to collaborate with Sony SAB as she believes it makes a huge difference in adding smiles to people & making them happy (although that has disappeared form the channel for a long time, what she was talking about is of the old channel SAB TV), but maybe the production houses weren't very excited to involve her.

Every show was having something different, just like the normally have, but the drawback here being the fact that they were still trying to hook these shows up together, which basically caused the problem. They could have had a much better 'Sony SAB ecosystem'. Timetable of the shows and intent of the shows deeply influences that, but that's fine.

Because of the partial involvement of writing the original essence of all of the shows was washed. It was all replaced with a very bland and a very unexciting product. For example, Wagle Ki Duniya is an amazing show that shows the real life of a common man, the struggles & the powers, and how they still remain happy, with an extra pinch of social messages. None of this could be found in today's episode. We'll come to that later.

3 shows were unwatchable and were enough to drive away viewers who were intially planning to stay up till 11. 3 shows were decent, one of them completely unaffected by the mahasangam and two of them having good episodes which could have been involved more. There was only one show which showed ONLY the mahasangam.

As per a Twitter poll conducted by TellyWit ,majority of people were excited for the event, while some waited and watched. Some were completely unhappy. That poll showed that most people had expectations from the event. These are the people who would feel letdown the most.

Show-wise review

HERO - Gayab Mode On

There was hardly anything proper in the episode. It started with any other day having a typical HERO story, later Haseena was introduced to Aditi who instantly collaborated. There was nothing much that should have been there in the introduction. Start of the event should immediately raise spines of people and attract them, maybe with suspense, maybe with glamour of the story, or maybe with just the start.  Nothing such could be observed from the episode. In fact, the episode was inferior to other episodes of the same show. Neither did it have the HERO grip that attracts HERO viewers, nor did it have the Sony SAB grip which could attract other viewers of other shows of the channel. There was a dance performance by Rakhi Sawant in the episode, which also seemed rushed. 

Rating: 2/10

Ziddi Dil Maane Na

The episode was really good, yet it was terrible. Now this contradicting statement is upon you as to how you interpret it, or you maybe just need to understand the deeper meaning behind what we're trying to say here. Let's start with the fact that this show was not really a contributing part of the Big Shanivaar. Hardly 2-3 minutes were shown of that topic, and that too, the main characters were not involved. There was just one video call that showed the police officers talking, and to whom? Batra Sir? After that? Nothing. Karan & Monami, Sanjana & Sid, Faizi (and ugh..Koel) didn't have ANY role in it. 

We won't completely blame them, because they have just started to come back on track with like disastrous and destroyed 2 weeks. But still, everything could have been executed a bit better and this could have been a great way to show BOTH the organ trafficking (the basically very interesting story that is the current track of this show, but was so wrongly executed that no one actually cared) and the Badshah-Begum Story.

Rating: 5/10

Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah

This was the worst part of this entire event. They practically fooled people by using the word Gokuldham and making people watch the show for no reason, but nothing happened. Not a single mention of the track anywhere. It seemed like an advertising gimmick just to make people watch TMKOC, which a lot of people didn't want to but were forced to watch. And what happened if they watched the show? Let's just talk about the show for a minute. The entire episode literally happened in only the same place, the same scene continued throughout the episode and the same people who did nothing but make 3-4 phone calls. There was neither a sensible story, nor there was any humour, nor good bold acting. Something that people would want to watch. About the story, there is so much wrong. When will the Tapu Sena realise that they are not kids anymore? They are bigger, so are supposed to be mature at the age of seriously 23+. They aren't random toddlers who will do anything wrong and be forgiven. They are trying to teach responsibility to these kids for like 13 years now, ever since the show started, but there is no real change. They will just keep making mistakes, trying to cover them up, and will be given a scolding at the end of track by Bapuji. The track will also take a long time to end. Two months later, they will repeat the mistake and the cycle continues.

Either there was internal politics due to which Rakhi & Ketan were not called on TMKOC sets to shoot, or the makers voluntarily opted out.

The entire fiasco was nothing but an advertising gimmick for TMKOC.

(If you are a TMKOC fan, again, no offence. We are not saying the show is bad. We are just saying that what happened today and the stories are not right.)

 

Rating: 0 / 10.

Wagle Ki Duniya

The first 'watchable' show. It felt a great relief to watch Sumeet, Pariva, Bharatiji & Aanjjanji along with star of the day Deepak Pareek on the show after all the mess that was created before. After all, rules are rules, follow na Kare the fools, fools- go back to schools. 

Raj was apparently trying to spy on Sakhi because he doesn't think Sakhi is safe with Vivaan, for which he did a wrong thing by making Harshad Harshita, and that would be fixed in Monday's episode. What happens next, if Sakhi confronts Raj or understands what would happen would be interesting to watch and would be revealed on Monday. For the thousandth time, hats off to Hats Off Productions for another social message, or rather this wasn't really a message, it was something that may conclude to do-s-and-dont-s. They love to prove that they are the best, BUT, wait, what? This time the hats off contains a huge complaint to Hats Off Productions. WHAT ABOUT THE MAHASANGAM?

With their social message, did they forget that a mahasangam was planned today? Either it was too rushed, or the makers themselves were not interested in showing this. JD Majethia, producer, who regularly promotes Wagle Ki Duniya on Twitter, didn't care about promoting the Big Shanivaar today.

P.S.: Sakhi's dance performance was a delight, good way to follow the main storyline and distract viewers from the fact that mahasangam is forgotten. Anyways, she dances well.

Ziddi Dil Maane Na and Wagle Ki Duniya were two shows which mostly showed their own story without contributing to the Shanivaar track, while still having a part of episode. We will hence keep similar ratings for both the shows, two points extra to Wagle Ki Duniya because they messed up, but messed up less.

Rating: 7/10

Shubh Laabh

What was even going on in this episode? Shubh Laabh has a good concept and some of the elements of this show are good. Despite all of that, there is something missing from the show ever since it started. This is the 'grip'. There is no reason to follow the next episode of the show. It's like, you play it, fine, watch it, you forget playing it, fine, no problem. No cliffhangers, no suspense, nothing. That kind of aligns with concept of the show, but it was a misfit for this event.

Lakshmi Maa could have seriously solved the whole problem, couldn't she? They showed two imposters in front of a God and there were no consequences. The police was completely missing from the episode. Obviously, they cannot show God solving all problems as that defeats the whole show purpose, but they could have definitely shown her showing some sort of light, some direction, some path to Haseena & team and let them handle, still helping them. God helps those who help themselves!

Shubh Laabh could become a really strong show with its concept if the event was executed well, but they, failed.

Rating: 4/10

Tera Yaar Hoon Main

The episode was good. They executed everything a bit better. It is always a pleasure to watch the show. For mysterious reasons, makers & the channel are wrongly promoting it by misleading non-regular viewers with non-existent triangles and what not, none of which is actually happening. 

The mahasangam was somewhat a part of the episode, but still, it was mostly missing from here. Sayantani Ghosh deserves a special mention for her acting & involvement. She was the only one from this show who was actually involved in the event. It's maybe the writers, but yeah. By now, please stop making Mamta relevant & important, because she has no reason to be. Neeharika Roy & Ssudeep are also good at expressing their emotions, along with most other actors of the show. Lakshya (Sagar Parekh) & Trishala's dance performance was also good. However, Rakhi Sawant's performance seemed a bit off due to the writing. 

Makers, why was only Daljeet a part of any of this? Why not anyone else?

Rating: 7/10

Maddam Sir

Apparently, this entire event was only meant to be for Maddam Sir. Every other production house (and Maddam Sir's production house itself for their other show Shubh Laabh) didn't care. The channel should have otherwise declared that this is just another Maddam Sir story promoted in other shows or Maddam Sir's growth OR Maddam Sir's story was used to promote the other shows for THEIR TRP and growth. This is completely the channel's fault. 

Coming back to the show, it was executed great, and maybe the best. Mostly due to the writing. The actors showed their active involvement, which reminds us about Santosh (Bhavika Sharma)'s dance performance which was also good. In general, it was the main part of the mahasangam which is great. It also heavily boosted the declining story and episode quality, which was on top notch quality once again after like 2 months. Haseena's plans always work out, don't they?

Rating: 8.5/10

** Parakram SAF's Vikram Batra sir only told Jai Hind Maddam Sir in the starting of call, ignoring Aditi. This could either be because our last point is true, or because there is another possible reason. Maddam Sir is of Mahila Police Thana Lucknow, which is more inclined towards north India, so possibly they have interacted before, and Aditi is a smaller-scale policewoman from Mumbai which is a bit different & distant.

Conclusion

The main problem about the mahasangam was that it was too rushed, there was no coordination, consistency or communication between makers, or maybe the makers weren't excited. Channel gave them the work, but each and every production house miserably failed.

They can show more mahasangams like that. Today's one was a production nightmare, nothing more, nothing less. (Context: A foreign director once told Ekta Kapoor that Mahasangams are not good in a production way) 

Next time, there should be active participation of all shows, that's it. 

Some day, they should show Amitabh Bacchan, Varun Dhawan and other actors who are close to the Sony group. It can be much better with the Amitabh Bacchan poems written by his father. Basically, the people who are well known to do it right.

Final rating as per all shows: 47.8%.

What do you think? Was the event a success or a failure? We think it is somewhere on the borderline of good and bad. Write down in the comments below. If you like such articles, do inform us on Twitter!